As part of the final year of my Digital Arts degree, I have created a Digital Interactive Sound Installation, involving the genertation of an array of visualised LED sequences, using ambient sounds and intentional directed sound.
As a digital arts student I am captivated by sound, and I strive to learn ways of using sound to engage users through interactivity and the huge interactive potential sound holds.
The starting point for this project was to try and experiment into how people use and interact with a space in relation to sound. The project was an opportunity to create a piece that could unimposingly have an impact on people within its range, by analysing the sound that was being created, and use that as a starting point to experiment into how that will affect the space.
So at the start of the term I wanted to create a sound interface, and as the term developed I had concluded that an interface that creates light by a users input would work well. From my own degree, a student Ben Hanbury made a sound to light project, but his intentions were slightly different to mine. His piece, "generated rhythms using pitch and amplitude readings from the sounds around it" [Hanbury, 2005]. I wanted something a little different, something that was unimposing, almost passively interactive.
Work by Sue Webster and Tim Noble eg. British Rubish and Bruce Nauman's many contributions to media art, have been influencial in how I got to the stage of developing my own digital art piece.
Before starting to build the project, the main issues surrounding the implementation must be addressed. These are:
Representing sound through light, the impact on a space, what is interesting is how will people use the piece and will it change the space and sounds created within that space.
Examples of sound to light projects:
James Clar,
Montreal "Artificel".
Graphic equalisers,
Disco lights and Disco balls in night clubs.
Ben Hanbury.
What is hoped to be achieved by this project, what is the meaning and outcomes of this project.
Generate more meaning in a space by invoking interaction and documenting that.
Visual representation of the pitches we communicate in.
Frequency range we speak in is limited, which is illustrated through interaction.
By creating a piece like this, interaction will create a visual performace, by using found sound. The "Found Sound Movement" is a large movement in sound are where all sorts of sounds are used, manipulated and changed to create sound tracks, among many other variations within the movement.
Manifestation, how would something like this look?
There are so many aesthetic variations this piece could have, but ultimately I was influenced by disco balls. They are a strange looking object, yet when we see them we are accustomed to them as well as mesmerised by the effects they have on the surrounding objects in a room. I want an extension of a childs toy.... orb like... the link between action and intent a logical extension. From this I thought a sphere or orb like object would be something a user could relate communication with, as well as not look out of place. The perfect solution, within my student budget, is a Chinese lantern. The LED's can shine through the thin paper easily, it is a decorative piece, cheap and unimposing.
Visualising sound in a room through pitch division.
I got the patch which visualised pitch working in max msp. For more information on this read the max/msp patch page.
So from there it is important to understand how people are going to use the piece. What are the set of expected rules associated with the piece. I did not construct the peice so that it could be moved like a ball. I think if the piece had this capability, the meaning of it could change dramatically.
Can I document the reactions as mapping of interactive design? How do people react to an interactive digital representation of sound, and what will people of different ages do. So far only students have had access to the piece. I also wanted to see how people learn how to use a piece such as this one? I think if the piece were to make noise reciprocal to that of the sounds in the room, a more spontaneous interaction would begin, but this would be more imposing.
Conclusion.
Improvements can be made in terms of portability would have opened up lots more potential for unique interaction possibilities. If the sphere could have been moved, wirelessly, many more possibilities for varying interaction would have been made possible. I would have also liked to use the 8 digital outputs from the iCube to control an array of LED's, rather than 8 LED sequences. This would have made it possible to increase the number of possibilities and variations for interaction, sequencing and interface experimentation by thousands.
As an interactive sound piece, that is unimposing and fun to play with and look at, I have succeeded in doing just that. My feedback from my presentation suggested that it provided great stimulation for people using it for short periods, it was easy to figure out, and that it worked well. Users wanted to see what it could do and it was interesting to see how each user applied a separate method of learning to what the object did. |
